Sectarian politics is increasingly vitiating the atmosphere all over the country. The latest, exactly one year after the JNU incident, are the clashes in the Ramjas College in the capital, where several students and some teachers were injured in fights between rival student groups.
There have been related incidents in Pune this past week. Some students were hurt in clashes at the Savitribai Phule Pune University, after posters protesting against the Ramjas College violence were put up. It is a historical fact that new and different thoughts have always emanated from universities and their students. The Ramjas incident seems shady because it, just like the JNU incident, comes just prior to the beginning of the Budget 2017-’18 session in Parliament.
To review the incident, the students of Ramjas had organised a seminar on ‘Culture of Protests’ in which Umar Khaled of JNU was one of the speakers. The BJP’s student wing, ABVP, labelled it as anti national and wanted the event stopped. Factionalism, obviously, took hold and fisticuffs ensued.
These are minor details that may not seem so very important to disturb the whole nation. However, two interests seem to be at work. One, seemingly the students’ demand for freedom of speech is definitely a serious issue.
The second, however, is of the BJP-led Union government always interested to have a major disturbance and distraction of this kind to thwart serious discussions on dangerous legislation that it proposes to bring before the House.
In the words of a commentator, “This nation is getting obsessed with controversies. It should learn to relax and enjoy life.”
Most likely, the Ramjas fracas will disturb Parliament that starts on 9 March 2017. And again, most likely, the government will push through draconian income tax related search and seizure laws to silence political and business enemies under the guise of the Finance Bill.
